Chicago's Episcopal Church of the Mediator closes doors after 129 years

By 10:30 a.m., eight altar candles at the Church of the Mediator on Chicago's Southwest Side had been snuffed for the final time. Wall hangings and flags laid bundled in back pews, waiting to be parceled off to nearby congregations.

Hymnals and prayer books had been offered to parish members, mementos of the church that closed Sunday, ending 129 years of service.

The church closed because of dwindling membership, an aging congregation and the resulting financial constraints, leaders said. Average weekly attendance had dwindled to about 30 members, parish leader Mary Reich said.

The shuttering shrinks to 128 the number of Episcopal congregations in the diocese of Chicago, which includes about 41,000 members throughout northern Illinois. Church of the Mediator had been the first Episcopal congregation on the Southwest Side, according to the church Web site.

"We weren't ever able to build up a young congregation again. People leave. Many families die out," Reich said, as she handed every family an artist rendering of the stained-glass window above the altar. Reich said church members debated closing as early as 1980.

Generations of members returned for the service, many of whom were baptized, confirmed and married in the traditional, stone church tucked along a residential street in Morgan Park, located at 10961 S. Hoyne Ave. More than six dozen people gathered for the final celebration, bringing to mind earlier, more vibrant days of the church.

"Sing as you've never sung before. Pray as you've never prayed before," Rev. Donald Frye told parishioners at the start of the service. Frye shepherded the church through its final month after the previous pastor left to head another church. "Take the good from this place and spread it around."

Many described the closing as sad but inevitable, calling it a sign of changing times. Others made plans to carpool to nearby parishes.

After the service, Carlmac Falk of Beverly hurried to offer a ride any Sunday to Al Hardwidge, 86, who joined Church of the Mediator nearly six decades ago. Falk said he first walked into the church Christmas Eve 1970. He returned for the final time Sunday with his wife and two sons.

"We've all failed because this should never have happened," Falk said. "I hope that maybe something good will come of it."

Taking in the stained-glass windows and stone walls, Julie O'Shea worried about the future of the church where she was married.

On Sunday, the Beverly mother watched as her 5-week-old daughter, Sofia, was baptized, the newest member to join the closing church.

"It was a bittersweet way to end it. ... Whatever happens, I want the dignity to stay, the integrity of the building," O'Shea said.

Diocese leaders officially "secularized" the church Sunday. The future use of the building has not yet been determined, said Rev. Michael Stephenson with the Chicago diocese.

"We're very sad whenever a church closes," Stephenson said. "Sometimes, it is the most appropriate course of action."

In town from Indianapolis, Heather Carmody extended her holiday visit to attend.

Carmody grew up as a fixture of the church where both her grandparents and parents were married. Sitting in a wooden pew alongside her mother and aunt, Carmody cried as the final hymn was sung.

"I used to walk here and meet my grandfather for church on Sundays," Carmody said of her grandfather Howard Heckmann.

Now 87, Heckmann returned for the service from Harbert, Mich., where he attends a Church of the Mediator founded by many of the original members of the Morgan Park parish. Heckmann planned to take furniture from the parish hall and kitchen appliances back to the smaller offshoot in Michigan.

Other parish belongings were either given to area parishes or longtime members with a special connection to a particular item, Reich said. Anything remaining will go to the diocese.

The Church of the Mediator opened in 1878, holding its first service in a hayloft near the corner of 111th Street and Hale Avenue. Eleven years later, Morgan Park officials donated a corner plot of land at 110th Street and Hoyne Avenue for the parish's first church. In 1930, a new church was built, with parish offices and a social hall added in 1956.

Also on Sunday, St. Paul's Community Church, founded 115 years ago by Norwegian Lutherans in the Wicker Park neighborhood, held its last worship service, said longtime member Larry Bloom. Though a non-denominational church since the 1980s, its congregation also had dwindled to about a dozen members. To prevent the sanctuary from being converted to condominiums, the church is negotiating a purchase by the Bucktown Arts Council.